Filtronic slumps in to the red

The Leeds-based business said wireless sales fell from £16.5m to £4m and group revenues fell by nearly two thirds from £20m to £7m.

Chairman Howard Ford said: “Whilst we are disappointed with the sales performance in the first half and foresee that the upturn in the second half is likely to be later than we had originally planned, we remain confident in our strategy and in the sales growth potential from the OEM products we have developed and are continuing to develop leading to a much improved trading performance over the medium-term.”

The group said full year results will be hit by delays due to technical issues that came up during the final testing stage.

Filtronic said that its wireless business​ is in the process of introducing a number of new products to ​original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)​. These typically include the likes of Nokia, Lucent and Alcatel​.

The group said that based on the anticipated timing of these new product introductions, it had previously thought that its annual sales revenue would increase month on month through the current financial year with a heavy weighting to the second half.

It had thought that a significant element of this growth would be generated from an advanced integrated antenna, but the development of this product has been delayed due to technical issues that arose during final product testing and qualification.

“Whilst we are implementing solutions to these issues, the delay will mean that the antenna will now enter production at least four months later than anticipated,” said chief executive Alan Needle.

On top of this an expected order from an OEM customer has not been received.

Mr Needle said that another two programmes with a major OEM have been delayed into the next financial year.

“Due to the impact of the programmes affected, the board now expects that the results for the wireless business in the current year will be substantially lower than current market expectations,” said Mr Needle.

In September the group said that its broadband business had traded “marginally lower” than in the first half of the previous year and slightly below the level it had expected.

It added that the business has been hit by the curtailment of orders from customers selling to Russia, a market that had been an early adopter of E-band and V-band technology.